BERKELEY — The deaths of a Berkeley married couple by carbon monoxide poisoning in January could have been prevented had their landlords followed state law and properly installed carbon monoxide detectors in their Deakin Street apartment, a wrongful death lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court alleges.

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Valerie Morash, 32, and her husband of nine years, 35-year-old Roger Hanna Morash, were found dead on the second floor of their home in the No. 4 unit of 3028 Deakin St., on Jan. 23. While carbon monoxide poisoning was initially ruled out as the cause of death because Pacific Gas & Electric crews could not find evidence of a carbon monoxide leak, authorities later determined that the couple and their two cats died of carbon monoxide poisoning, attorney Michael Bracamontes said Tuesday. Autopsy results showed “extremely high” levels of carboxyhemogloben in their blood, he said.

Susan Hanna, the mother of Hanna Morash, is suing the Deakin Street landlord/building owners Cindy M. Kwong, Tony M. Wong, and the Kwong/Wong Family Trust for damages on allegations that her son’s death would have been prevented had a carbon monoxide detector been installed near the couple’s sleeping quarters pursuant to California building code. A carbon monoxide detector was installed on the bottom floor, the lawsuit notes, but not on the second floor where Morash was found dead in a bedroom and Hanna Morash in a home office.

The source of the carbon monoxide has still not been determined, according to Bracamontes, and the couple’s former apartment remains tagged as unsafe while authorities continue their investigation. The other three units in the building remain occupied. The city of Berkeley did not return a call for comment Tuesday. An attorney for the defendants could not be reached.

The couple met while they were both undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had lived in the Deakin Street residence for seven years. Valerie Morash received her Ph.D. in psychology from UC Berkeley and was working on her post-doctoral fellowship at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye-Research Institute at UC Berkeley. Roger Hanna Morash was a game developer who worked on numerous titles before starting his own gaming company, Glug Glug.

“These were two well-liked, young, successful individuals who were not only productive members of their community but were loved and respected by everyone who knew them,” Bracamontes said. “It is certainly a tragic loss when loved ones are taken from you in a senseless and preventable fashion.”

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